


present

by pseudocitrus



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:10:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10984992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocitrus/pseuds/pseudocitrus
Summary: Arima comes to visit Eto's cell one last time.





	present

**Author's Note:**

> hey there!
> 
> i've been writing less recently due to various things...i posted this on tumblr a while back. it's a self-indulgent small arieto that i wrote some time ago at 5am :’)
> 
> this fic makes references to tg:re:83.
> 
> hope you're having a good day!

There’s only so much you can do when you’re alone in a cell. Eto leans back, closes her eyes. This is the part that she always leaves out of her own stories, or else glazes over with a single sentence: _She waited, for a long time._

If she could do it again, she’d revise. She’d attempt to capture even a little bit of the overwhelming spareness that she feels now: the blank walls, the window that shows nothing, the humming that’s come to rest in her ears like an insect seeking shelter.

In a situation like this, the sound of footsteps approaching down the corridor is as exciting as a television drama. For a moment she entertains herself with the thought that she really might not know what will happen next.

“Greetings,” Eto says, when the figure reaches her window. “Your Highness.”

“Hello,” Arima says. “Eto.”

:::

It’s a privilege, to not know what will happen next. It’s a privilege to receive your days in a box wrapped by someone else — fate, destiny, a god. A privilege to hold your breath and be unsure of what you’ll inhale next is a curse or blessing. Eto thinks this now, surrounded her blank walls and her window to nowhere, the cheap and dull packaging that she gave herself.

“I think it will work,” Arima says, after entering.

“Of course it will,” Eto says, looking off at the ceiling. “I had no doubts about it.” Her eyes shift to him. “Did you?”

Arima remains silent. For once, it isn’t because he doesn’t have anything to say. She can practically see that brain of his chugging away, as it always did during their meetings. Sampling every possible path. Seeking the best possible outcome.

In battle, there are fewer variables; he can make his decision faster than an instant. But now…

“Sit,” Eto says.

He does. The mattress dips below his weight, so much so that Eto’s body rolls against him, mostly by accident. But, she doesn’t move away.

“What’s that?” Arima asks, suddenly. Eto follows his gaze to the plastic box on the floor.

“Ah,” she says. “A present. From dear Furuta.”

A curse, and a blessing. Licked clean and discarded. Arima regards it.

“Was it enough?” he asks.

“Better than nothing,” Eto replies.

Then they are silent again.

:::

It’s a privilege.

This meeting, unlike the others, wasn’t planned laboriously between CCG missions and autograph sessions. And yet, she knew that it would happen, with as much certainty as if she had contacted him herself and told him, _“Come see me, one last time.”_

Eto waits, just a little longer, and then closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath, as if to sigh.

Everything is in place. Everything is in motion. Even if she wanted to, even if her single desire in the entire world was to stop everything, she would be completely unable to.

All that’s left is to pull the ribbon.

:::

It’s not the same as it was the first few times. It hasn’t been, for a while; but there’s a certainty this time that hadn’t existed before, an inevitability. Eto reaches over to unbutton his shirt, idly, and then straddles him, and yanks the shirt out from being tucked into his pants. Arima raises his arms obligingly to allow her to remove it, and then inverts the prison robe over her head.

They strip completely, with the ease of practice. The small buttons and buckles that Arima now sometimes fumbles with are easily dispatched by her; and, Arima simply lifts her body up and yanks off the pants, freeing them from one ankle after the other. It feels good to be naked again, even if the sheets are stiff and old, even if the ends of her hair are tickling her shoulders.

“Oh, I forgot to ask,” Eto realizes. “Do you like it?”

She frames her hands around her hair indicatively. Arima, leaning over her, raises a hand to comb through it. His palm is warm on her cheek. He lets the strands fall from between his fingers.

“Yes,” he answers. “It reminds me.”

Of their first time, or maybe their second, or maybe the third, or maybe of all of it, or maybe of something completely different, some quiet thought he had that he never shared and which now she will never know. She grimaces at her own helpless poetics. Arima bends toward her and she tries to forget, and to remember.

His hands on her stomach, her breasts. His sigh on her throat. The brush of his hair on her forehead. The motion of his muscles against the inside of her thighs. His hand smooths a line from breastbone to navel. His palm turns over, his fingers part the lips of her cunt and make circles there until her body, gently rocking against him, is wet enough to admit the length of his largest finger. She reaches for him too, for the places she knows he likes best. Lips beneath his right ear. A drag of nails against his lower back. A cradling stroke against his cock, which is starting to flourish against her with a lust that’s always pleased her with its contrast to his mild expressions.

“Arima,” she whispers. She finds that her expression is making a smile. “You didn’t answer me. You had doubts?”

Her voice is just a little mocking. He runs his tongue along his lips. His hand slows. Eto presses her mouth to his ear, the right one again. Her lips brush. She whispers, like a caress.

“It will be fine.”

He shudders.

“It will be fine,” she repeats, tracing the blade of his shoulder, tracing one long line of muscle in his back. “Everything will work out exactly as we planned.”

“Haise?” Arima asks, very quietly.

“Kaneki Ken will survive, of course. Despite himself,” Eto can’t help adding, with a laugh.

“What else?” Arima asks.

She tells him. Take Hirako will arrive, after, as he asked. The children will weep at first, but they’ll enjoy it, the cafe, even more than anything else they ever experienced in the hellhole that’s called a garden. She goes on and on, for every party she can think of, wrapping it all up for him, gathering and weaving the loose threads into a picture she serves into his ear. It will be hard, at first, of course. But at the end, everyone will be happy.

“And you,” Arima says, “What about you?”

Eto blinks at him. “Me?”

“What will happen to you?”

“I — don’t know,” Eto says, before she can stop herself. Her voice splintered, in the middle. She waits for words to come to her, and when they don’t, Eto replaces her hand on Arima’s hand, makes him return to his rhythm, hooks a leg behind his waist to press him closer against her.

Fortunately, he follows her lead. Her words drift away, replaced with waves of lust, with the bare beckoning of her mouth and nails and Arima sinking inside of her, his body covering her, filling her. Her breath turns jagged and then shallow as his weight squeezes the air from her, rough, sweet. Her head turns light. In the throes of it all, thoughts occur to her that she can’t suppress. _I love this._  And, _I’ll miss it._

She feels herself almost to climax, much too early, much too soon, and she pushes him, and he pushes himself too, away. They pause, covered with sweat, filling the cell with the sound of their panting. They look at each other, and then start, again, slowly, inexorably, as if they had all the time in the world.

He thrusts into her, each motion calm and deep, and they feel it, together: the heat rising, gently but surely, with every luxurious stroke; the helpless pressure, building, and building. The heaviness and charge of it would suggest something explosive; but when they finally they meet their peak, there’s only the desperate unraveling. Their voices shatter; they dissolve, around each other, into each other. She feels herself fill with warmth, and tries to relish it, tries to keep it, even as the return of such concerns start to distance her from the naked pleasure of simply feeling.

It’s over. Arima is already softening. The world is returning again, revealing its pressing mundanity: the bare walls, the too-small and creaky bed, the scattered clothing that needs to be picked up, and put on again, and smoothed out of all its folds and wrinkles.

But Arima doesn’t straighten. Instead, he eyes her, and then touches his hand to her mouth.

Perplexed, Eto parts her lips, and then her teeth, yielding. His fingers enter, pressing against her tongue, and then working against a canine. She’s ghoul enough and he human enough that the sharpness tears his skin. His blood seeps as she makes a surprised noise. Impulsively, she swallows.

He leaves it there, for a minute, and then withdraws.

“Better than nothing,” he says.

Some feeling strikes her, something deep, and acute. It immobilizes her. He gets up, and starts to dress, careful not to stain anything with his still-dripping finger. She helps him, but for some reason feels in a sort of haze, as if she is reading about some character that’s re-buttoning his shirt and allowing him to push her gown back on again. When it’s time, they face each other.

“See you,” Eto says.

“Farewell,” Arima replies.

But he doesn’t go immediately. He studies her, and she wonders if he even sees her. She comes closer, and then, without much warning, grabs his shoulders, and leans up, to kiss him. It’s soft, at first, and then she bites him, and takes just a little more.

:::

They’d planned out everything, for years. Now the walls are blank. Her ears hum.

_It’s a privilege,_ Eto tells herself. She closes her eyes.  _It’s a privilege._


End file.
